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I’m sure that you thought since we’ve passed April 1, I’m going to leave you alone about the whole Gauntlet thing.

But I’m not.

This is my last chance to convince you that in 30 days you could be better at something you suck at, proud of your progress, and filled with hope for a future full of sunshine and unicorns.

You know this. You’ve heard this. And there’s something already on your mind that you might try but you’ve filled your head with excuses, tried to talk yourself out of it, and generally been a big, sucky baby. Haven’t you? You big, sucky baby.

I was a big sucky baby once. Actually, I still am. It’s why every once in a while I still get out for a good old fashioned Lollipop Tuesday. In fact, I have something incredibly embarrassing and pee-inducing coming up this week. And then after that I have to run a 5K. And then after that I have to run a 10K.

These things are not easy for me. They’re not easy for lots of people. Everyone is working, not getting enough sleep, needs more time to relax, and all those other things that get in the way of taking care of your own needs and desires. Let me assure you that even though I’m in the midst of a fitness-related 365, every day is a challenge. The good news is that all you have to do is 30. And even though the intrinsic rewards should be plenty to make you feel like it was worth your time, I’m throwing in the chance to win a $100 Visa Gift Card just for participating.

Today’s shout out for joining The Gauntlet goes to Georgia’s Bath Products, who has decided to spend a little bit of time every day for 30 days doing something to improve her small business. That’s pretty fantastic. You can follow her journey here. Or you can just drop by and tell her how awesome she is.

In addition to Georgia, I’ve had people contact me to share stories of their challenges and the ways they’re going to get involved. They include:

Reading every single day to help conquer a pile of books that have accumulated on the wish list but have never gotten lovin’

Writing of all shapes and sizes – novels, paragraphs, blogs, poems… Did you know April is National Poem Writing Month, also known asNaPoWriMo? How perfectly aligned this all is.

Fitness, fitness, fitness. This comes in a variety of forms – yoga, stress relieving activities, doses of sunshine – people everywhere are using The Gauntlet as a good excuse to take care of themselves and see what sticks after one month.

Job hunting. What a great idea, right? If you’re unhappy with your current money-making situation, why not do one thing every day to better it? People are vowing to browse job boards every day, apply for jobs and internships, and work on projects that will better their positions in the workplace.

So what’s the thing nagging you? Is it a house that needs spring cleaning? Is it a project that’s sat in the corner of your room forever? Is it something you’ve been all-talk and no-walk about for an embarrassingly long time?

The Gauntlet was set up so that you could easily start April 1st and end April 30th, with over a week to spare to contact me to tell me you completed it. But you can start any time. And you can start up until April 9th and still be on board for the $100 Visa gift card and a host of other folks supporting your endeavor out there in the blogosphere.

So comment below or click that link on the top of the page or on the right sidebar that lead to the rules and deadlines for The Gauntlet. Drop a line about what you’re going to commit to, or find your favorite form of social media and tell me there. Use #TheGauntlet for me to find you on the Twitter Machine.

This is my last push for The Gauntlet – next week I won’t be trying to convince you of anything. I’ll be talking about my cats or something. And hopefully you’ll be 1/4 of the way toward being infinitely more awesome.

By the way, once upon a time I was a big fat whiny baby with a lot of excuses who ate a lot of pizza and didn’t get any physical activity aside from walking from my front door to my car. And then I logged into Sparkpeople yesterday and was greeted by this:

You know, just saying. Progress can only happen if you start.

Peace out, kids. I hope to hear from you. And thanks for all your cheerleading thus far. ♣

5 Responses to “You’re Gonna Miss the Train”

I’m not missing it, I started today! 😀 I have decided to make mine a creative challenge as I want to be more creative but because it is fun I tend to put it off if I have non-fun things I ought to do (then I don’t do those either so nothing gets done and I feel sad). Two weeks ago I ordered a needle felting machine (embellisher) and it arrived today! Yay!!! 😀 So my gauntlet challenge is going to be to use the machine every single day for 30 days. That should also stop my husband suggesting it was a white elephant that I’ll never use. I shall blog about it as well – I may or may not manage to post a pic every day of what I made that day, this is not a blogging challenge for me, but it would be nice if I could manage that.

Hopefully that potential “white elephant” brings you a lot of happy hours at it. 🙂 It’s the same way in my house with all of my ingredients on shelves. You’ll have double the rewards when you do something that makes you happy and you can prove it is worth it. 🙂 Best Wishes!!

Yes! I absolutely love this. It’s probably one of my favorites so far. Everyone has something sitting around that they swore they’d put to good use and never did. Maybe I should finally get the dust of the djembe that’s been sitting in my living room with two years of good intentions. Good luck!

Thank you so much for the awesome words and feature. You made my day! 🙂 I hope you realize that your gauntlet is like a pebble thrown in a lake. The ripples are going through your readers and then through their connections, and so on. You’re really helping a lot of people with this idea. That’s pretty awesome in my book. GL on your continued journey!!

That’s wonderful to hear – I’m delighted by the calls, texts, emails and comments I’m getting saying folks are hopping on board. And I’m so excited to see how different everyone’s ideas are. Thanks for joining in!